This invention relates to semiconductor devices made from silicon carbide.
Silicon carbide (SiC) has a thermal conductivity three times that of silicon, a breakdown field ten times higher than silicon, and a saturated drift velocity twice that of silicon. This makes it suitable for certain high power or high voltage devices. However, state of the art SiC wafers have a finite density of micropipes (30 to 200 cm-2). These micropipes cause yield problems when a device such a field effect transistor is located, or partially located, over a micropipe. See, for example, P. G. Neudeck and J. A. Powell, xe2x80x9cPerformance Limiting Micropipe Defects in Silicon Carbide Wafers. xe2x80x9d IEEE Electron Device Letters, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 63-65, (1994).
The invention includes a semiconductor device, comprising a silicon carbide substrate comprising micropipes, wherein the micropipes are filled with a dielectric, and a method of making such a device.